Composer-pianist Vijay Iyer has carved out a unique path as an influential, shape-shifting presence in 21st-century music. His deeply interactive, powerfully expressive musical language is indebted to the composer-pianist lineage from Duke Ellington and Thelonious Monk to Alice Coltrane and Geri Allen, the creative music movement of the 60s and 70s, and rhythmic traditions of South Asia and West Africa. As MinnPost recently observed, “twining composition and improvisation is rightfully his most celebrated métier.”

Iyer has released twenty-six widely praised albums, received three Grammy nominations, numerous national and international prizes, and a MacArthur Fellowship. He has composed for orchestras, soloists, and chamber ensembles and collaborated with poets, filmmakers, choreographers, and music-makers from across the planet. However, Iyer’s artistry finds perhaps its purest expression in his most celebrated group, the Vijay Iyer Trio, praised by NPR as “truly astonishing” and by The New York Times as “one of the best bands in jazz.”

Over the years, this pivotal ensemble has nurtured a remarkable roster of now-revered young musicians. The first longstanding iteration of Iyer’s trio, featuring bassist Stephan Crump and wunderkind drummer Marcus Gilmore, became one of the definitive ensembles of the 2010s. Their three groundbreaking albums—Historicity (ACT, 2009), Accelerando (ACT, 2012), and Break Stuff (ECM, 2015)—received universal acclaim in the jazz and mainstream press, each winning multiple awards for best album, best jazz group, and best pianist, and cementing Iyer’s place in the modern musical firmament. Their repertoire juxtaposed memorable covers of “Galang,” “Human Nature,” and “The Star of a Story” with Iyer’s intricate, soulful compositions.

In 2021, an all-star incarnation of Iyer’s trio with bassist Linda May Han Oh and drummer Tyshawn Sorey released Uneasy (ECM), which was named one of the best jazz albums of 2021 by Pitchfork, The New Yorker, NPR, The Boston Globe, and numerous other publications. The group’s riveting 2024 follow-up, Compassion (ECM), was named one of the best albums of 2024 by The Boston Globe, The Washington Post, NPR, The Wire, and The Denver Post, and was hailed by Forbes as “a masterful work that overflows with beauty, feeling, warmth, and sensitivity.”

These two discs are the work of an ensemble that bears some resemblance to that earlier band—retaining Iyer’s attraction to dark colors, elliptical shapes, and plunging momentum—but there’s a more pronounced expression of equal say among the musicians, along with a powerful sense of shared purpose and a stratospheric level of attunement. The two newer recordings are also, in their titular implications and references, more overtly political, featuring Iyer’s compositions “Children of Flint,” “Combat Breathing,” and the memorial tributes “Arch” (for Archbishop Desmond Tutu) and “It Goes” (for Emmett Till).

Iyer’s ever-evolving trio conception, developed over 30 years with an enviable roster of state-of-the-art bassists and drummers, finds inspiration in the trio music of Ahmad Jamal, the Ellington/Mingus/Roach summit Money Jungle, Andrew Hill’s Smokestack, McCoy Tyner’s 1970s ensembles, the rhythm-section alchemies of James Brown, Fela Kuti, and The Meters, South Asian rhythmic forms, and the expressive nuance of chamber music. The results, over the span of his trio’s five pivotal recordings and hundreds of performances, have not only defied old categories but created entirely new ones.

PRE-SHOW JAZZ CONVERSATION AT 7PM WITH ASHLEY KAHN INCLUDED FOR ALL TICKET-HOLDERS
Ashley Kahn is a Grammy-winning music historian, author, a prolific writer of album liner notes, a producer of recordings and documentaries, and has authored books on legendary albums (John Coltrane’s A Love Supreme, Miles Davis’ Kind of Blue), on a record label (The House That Trane Built: The Story of Impulse Records) and co-wrote Carlos Santana’s autobiography The Universal Tone. He has received numerous honors including a Lifetime Achievement Award by the Jazz Journalists Association in 2023. He teaches at New York University’s Clive Davis Institute for Recorded Music and speaks at a variety of music festivals, conservatories, and music programs around the world.

Telemakus
Telemakus is a 24-year-old Indian-American artist from the Bay Area, now based in Los Angeles. The self-taught pianist, producer, and composer merges forward facing jazz and fusion into his own sound. Telemakus makes music that unifies the sounds of his community and collaborators, including Flying Lotus, Butcher Brown, Miguel Atwood-Ferguson, CARRTOONS, Javier Santiago, Nicole McCabe, Julius Rodriguez and more. His debut album “The New Heritage” has gained over 5 million streams, receiving acclaim from The New York Times and NPR, among other outlets.

His musical journey began at age 12, when he delved into song production, later expanding his skills to learning jazz piano. He grew up in a creative household, encouraged by his Indian immigrant mother, an artist and painter, and his older brother, a poet. Recently graduating in 2023 with a B.A. in Cognitive Science from UC Davis, Telemakus is not just a musician; he's a cognitive artist, exploring the intersection of music and the mind. Diagnosed with a genetic condition, Ehlers Danlos Syndrome, he’s embarked on a continuous, brutal journey of recovery. Successfully finding treatment, he overcame the odds, even learning to write and play songs with his feet—some that will be featured on his new album in 2025. 

Telemakus' resilience shines through his music and live performances, promising a bright future in the evolving jazz and hip-hop scene.